Digital lock-in detection system based on single photon counting for near-infrared functional brain imaging

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Near infrared (NIR) diffuse optical imaging (DOI) are increasingly used to detect hemodynamic changes in the cerebral cortex induced by brain activity. For the sake of capturing the dynamic changes in real-time imaging applications, such as brain imaging, digital lock-in detection technique could be applied. Using particular modulation and sampling constraints and averaging filters, one can achieve optimal noise reduction and discrimination between sources in different modulation frequencies. In this paper, we designed and developed a compact dual-wavelength continuous wave DOI system based on the single photon counting digital lock-in detection technique. According to the frequency division multiplexing light source coding technique, sine waves with different frequencies are generated so as to amplitude-modulate two laser sources with different wavelengths. The diffuse light is detected by photomultiplier tubes (PMTs) and the data is collected by the detection channels simultaneously. A digital lock-in detection circuit for photon counting measurement module and a DDS (Direct Digital Synthesizer) signal generation module were separately implemented in two FPGA development platforms. To validate the feasibility and functionality of the developed system, a series of experimental tests were performed. Preliminary results show that the system could be used to reconstruct the absorption coefficient and could separate the response of the dual wavelength sources which were modulated by sine signals of different frequencies effectively. In addition, several imaging experiments were performed on the semi-infinite solid phantom to find the “best imaging position” for a given source-detector placement.